


gained in the flood

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cal is basically Coulson's father-in-law, Coulson and his ridiculous crush on Skye, Coulson came back for Skye, Coulson dealing with his loss, Coulson's ridiculous crush on Skye, Cuddling & Snuggling, Disabled Character, F/M, First Time, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Scars, Skye helps Coulson get dressed, post-finale scenes, this is one way of taking it slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:31:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-finale, Coulson comes to terms with what he's lost (and what he's gained).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

His last thought is of Skye and of the way they said goodbye the day before, of the restrained way he touched her on the arm. In the moment, he had wanted to do more than touch her arm.

He wouldn't have held back, he thinks, if he had known that would be the last time.

 

* * *

 

After, there’s a lot of pain. He passes out from the pain, actually, so he’s not sure he can really complain about it — given that he misses feeling most of it.

Then come the surgeries — a lot of hours when he's in and out of consciousness, in and out of the pain.

Removing necrotic flesh, getting him stabilized, dealing with the minor secondary infections that happen when you have delicate surgery done with a fire axe.

Simmons forces him to spend two weeks in a hospital bed so she can monitor him as he recovers.

Of course, he has no room to be anything but grateful that he’s still alive, but that doesn’t make the pain any better.

The drugs help.

Skye helps more.

When he first wakes up, she’s sitting at his bedside in the Playground's medical facility where he was rushed after the axe, before he had a chance to even lay eyes on her. It feels like the first time he's seen her in years, even though it's only been two days.

Everything has felt wrong since the moment he dropped her at The Retreat, and even with everything that's still wrong, something settles when he sees her.

“Skye,” he sighs her name, drawing her attention from somewhere off in space.

“Hi,” she greets him with a worried smile, leaning forward towards his bed.

“How long have you been here?”

“A while.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

He winces at his words; he’s a little loopy from pain medicine, but still conscious of what he’s saying, at least.

It makes her smile, though, so it can’t be so bad.

She reaches forward and sets a tentative hand on his right shoulder, like she’s not sure it’s allowed, or maybe that she’ll hurt him. He winds his hand around her back, though, and tugs her down into a real hug.

Which means tugging her onto his bed.

It’s not something he’d do if he weren’t medicated, and basically he’s just aware enough of his own inebriation to marvel at his audacity, but not self-conscious enough to stop it.

Skye does not seem to mind at all.

In fact, she scrambles onto the side of his bed like it’s the only place she wants to be.

Carefully, she arranges herself so her face presses into his right shoulder and her right arm wraps low around his torso.

“Okay?”

Her voice is muffled in the hospital gown Simmons has changed him into.

“Yeah,” he manages to answer, even though his throat feels tight.

“I missed you,” she whispers into his shoulder, and he tightens his good arm around her.

He wants to tell her that she should never leave his side again, but he's just self-conscious enough not to say it.

“I missed you, too.”

There have been so many points in the last two weeks when he thought that maybe he’d never even see her again, let alone have her like this. Then he'd seen her, only to have everything about it be _wrong_.

But here she is anyways. Here and alive and in his bed and more than he has ever had the right to hope for.

All things considered, it's almost too good to be true.

It's only the pain in his left arm that convinces him that _this is real_. Not too good to be true. But if this is his price, the cost to be _alive_ and here with her, he can be okay with paying it.

They don’t say anything else, just lie together, and he's lulled back to sleep by the quiet, even sound of her breath in his right ear.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up again, she’s back in the chair by his bed.

“Hi,” he greets her, and she smiles at him.

He presses his dry tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to drum up moisture.

“Here,” she holds out a cup of ice. “Simmons said you'd probably need this when you woke up. No liquids yet.”

Coulson nods, but when he goes to reach for the cup, she pulls back and instead brings it to his lips herself.

He just looks at her — more openly than he usually would — as he sucks on a few ice chips and she sinks back into her chair.

She doesn’t look bad — he’s fairly certain that it’s empirically impossible for Skye to look bad — but she looks tired. Tired and like she knows what it is to feel the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Which she does. If he understands Jiaying's plan in evacuating the crystals, Skye saved more than just the remaining SHIELD personnel today.

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“Since Simmons kicked me out of your bed,” she answers with a small smile.

He wants to invite her back in, but can’t quite seem to find a way to do that. It's not really something they do, after all, and with less drugs in his system, that's much easier to remember.

Instead, he reaches his hand to her, and she takes it, sliding her chair somehow closer, so she leans onto his bed with both elbows. He might as well invite her back on, he thinks.

“My dad told me what you did.”

“The part where I hit him with a car?” He winces at the memory of pinning Cal to the wall.

She laughs, though.

“No, the part where you reasoned with him. Where you didn’t kill him, even when you probably should have.”

“I would never want to be the one to take your father from you.”

“I know.”

She squeezes his hand.

“My father was murdered,” he tells her. He's not sure if he shared that part with her, that specific detail. She probably knew, but for some reason it's important that he tells her. “I would never want you to go through that.”

Her response to that is startling: she presses a kiss to the back of his hand, then another and another, soft warm lips and just a hint of moisture.

He misses his left hand, just for that moment, not because of the pain or the promise that many parts of his life will become more challenging, but because if he had it she might kiss it right now.

If he had two hands, she might hold both of them and press kisses to both of them and he might have more of her kisses — twice as many of her kisses.

It's a greedy thought, especially when he should just be grateful to be alive — to have a chance to have _any_ of this, already more than he deserves.

“Thank you,” she whispers against his hand, between these kisses that he doesn’t understand.

And Coulson doesn’t know how to respond to that because killing Skye’s father was just never an option, not really. He can't accept thanks for making the only choice he could. So he doesn’t say anything, just appreciates the feel of her lips on his skin.

“What do we do with him, though?” Her voice is so _sad_ on the question, and he wishes that he could save her from this, too.

He swallows, mouth still a little too dry.

“He’s not a bad man,” he tells her, “but he’s done bad things.”

“We can’t just let him walk free,” Skye agrees. “I’m not sure I could ever trust him, even after what he did...even when he’s doesn't have those drugs in him.”

“No,” Coulson agrees. It makes him sad.

“I had a thought…” She swallows and looks down at the bed. “Do we really have the ability to implement the TAHITI protocol? Like you told Ward?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Do you think it would work on my dad?”

That gives him pause because the Tahiti protocol isn't something he thinks on fondly. He's not sure he's ever considered a use of it that he would consider _good_ , that would even be _acceptable_ , but it's possible that this is one. Perhaps it's for Skye more than for Cal that he's considering it, but even that seems fair.

“I know it doesn’t take away a base personality...” She continues and then trails off, as though waiting for him to fill in the rest.

“That’s why I wouldn’t have done it on Ward. But your father isn’t a bad person.”

“I think he’s actually kind of nice.”

Cal cares. Coulson has seen that first hand, seen how much he cares.

“That’s where you get it from,” he suggests, and she smiles at him — big and sort of watery — before she kisses his hand again. She exhales through her nose as her lips press against him, tickling the fine hairs on the back of his hand and making his whole arm tingle.

And his left palm _itches_ with the need to touch her — to cup her cheek and brush away the tear under her eye. It's not an uncommon sensation, in fact it's one he's used to biting back, but this time it's important because he would actually do it. And because, of course, his left palm is now stone, his left palm is no longer attached to his body, his left palm doesn't _actually_ itch to touch her cheek.

He wishes for it, though. Wishes for the ability to touch her cheek with one hand while her lips are still pressed to the other.

Instead, his left arm stays immobilized against his chest and his right hand receives another warm kiss.

He tries to enjoy what he has, not mourn what he can never have.

And really, what he has right now is _so much more_ than he ever imagined having that he can't even understand it.

“So, if he agrees, you think we can do that?”

“Yeah, I think we can do that.”

She smiles, still sort of watery and sad, and he wishes better for her than this. Better than watching one parent die and choosing the fate of the other.

“Your mother…”

He captured this story only in part — in snips and flashes in between the pain — but he understands that Cal killed her. That Cal killed her to save Skye.

“Her power meant she had to kill people. Did you know that?”

“Your father mentioned, yes.”

“She tried to do it to me. To take my...life.”

And just... _fuck_.

“I’m so sorry, Skye.”

She nods and lays her forehead down next to his hand, and he immediately rests his palm on her head, stroking through her hair as much as he can.

“I’d like to see my father live,” she tells him quietly, and he nods.

“We can do that.”

 

* * *

 

One of Simmons's lab techs comes by to give him a sponge bath.

He really wishes for someone who wasn't technically his employee, but at least it's not Simmons.

Skye leaves to get lunch while the tech does his job.

“I could get in the shower,” Coulson informs the tech. Which isn't fair, he should be having this argument with Simmons.

“Doctor Simmons says no getting the dressings wet, yet.”

He wants to push the issue, but Simmons was smart to send an underling. He's not going to make this poor kid's job any harder by being more cranky than he already is.

Anyways, it feels good to be clean.

And afterwards, he gets to eat lunch with Skye.

The chicken she brings is already cut into pieces, and he wonders if she did it or ordered it that way.

 

* * *

 

The days all blur together.

Hunter stops by, just long enough to update him on Bobbi. May spends a lot of time on the clean up, and really only comes by with updates. The truth is that he misses his friend, and he thinks only time will tell if he's utterly burned that bridge.

It's boring as hell, but it's bearable because Skye spends so much time with him.

Mack comes in at one point while she's curled in her chair next to him, talking about everything at Afterlife.

And Mack is a big man, filling up space in a way that often seems to make him uncomfortable, but to Coulson’s somewhat medicated eye, Mack looks _especially_ uncomfortable.

“Sir,” he nods at Coulson and then turns to Skye. “Tremors.”

Skye spends about half a second making a face of faux exasperation before her lips curve into a pleased grin, which brings out a matching one on Coulson. He can’t quite help it, not when she looks so happy. (Not when he's got some heavy narcotics in his system.)

“I just wanted to apologize.”

Coulson furrows his brow, honestly confused.

“You saved my life, there’s nothing to apologize for. I should be thanking you.”

Mack smiles and steps further into the room, to the chair next to Skye, which she pats invitingly.

It’s only when Mack sits down that Coulson realizes that she’s still holding his hand — that she’s barely let go of it in all the time she's been here. That every time she leaves, she somehow ends up back here with her hand curled inside of his.

He knows it’s inappropriate to let someone else see this, but he can’t bring himself to care.

He's only got one hand, now, after all, and feels a little defensive about his right to choose what to do with it. And the next time he dies, he's not going to go out with regrets about Skye.

So he keeps holding her hand, holds it perhaps a little defensively if that can be a thing, and turns his attention to Mack. Mack who doesn't even seem to register that there's something strange about Skye holding Coulson's hand.

“Not for that. I told you before that I couldn’t be a part of SHIELD as long as you were in charge.”

“And I understand that decision,” Coulson reassures him. He won’t say it doesn’t hurt — he likes to be trusted — but he understands.

“I was wrong.”

It makes Coulson grin again, the kind of smile he would do better at holding back if there weren’t muscle relaxants in his system. But he likes Mack. He can tell these things, when someone is worth liking, when someone is worth having around, when someone's opinion matters.

And Mack is worth liking, worth having around. Mack's opinion matters.

Skye openly laughs at his smile, more or less, and he really doesn’t mind.

“I appreciate that.”

“There’s been a lot of weird stuff lately,” Skye adds, squeezing Coulson’s hand once. He smiles at her before adding:

“Having someone around who’s skeptical without being quite so…”

“Murdery?” Skye offers.

“...convinced that destruction is the only path,” he says instead, throwing Skye a half-smirk, “is an asset.”

“I’m glad you think so, sir, because I’d like to stay on.”

“Good. You're an asset, Agent Mackenzie. And a good man.”

“I'd rather not be in the field, though. Violence —”

“Not really your thing, I remember.”

Mack nods gratefully.

“What would you think about being in charge of alien artifacts? Maybe keeping my science team from getting too overzealous?”

Mack smiles.

“I'd like that.”

And he feels like maybe, going forward, this can be good.

 

* * *

 

It gets harder when he starts to wean himself off the pain medication.

There's the pain, but more than that, there's the dark, self-pitying thoughts that chase after him.

He’s lost enough in his fucking life. He’s already died, he doesn’t deserve this. He's already died, he's already paid with literally every fucking thing he has, he doesn't deserve this.

(And he doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve this.)

It doesn’t help that Skye goes back to Afterlife, to try to settle loose ends.

To lose the euphoria of Skye — of her _back_ and _with him_ and holding his hand and pressing inexplicable kisses against it — at the same time as he loses the euphoria of the drugs is probably too much.

Andrew seems to know, though, and stops by his room too often.

Andrew, dressed in a nice suit and tie while Coulson is stuck barefoot in sweatpants and a t-shirt, which were already a struggle to get on.

Yeah, his presence doesn’t help much.

He leans against Coulson's dresser and asks frustrating questions while Coulson sort of sulks in his easy chair.

“You're missing Skye,” Andrew suggests, his first _invaluable_ insight into Coulson's psyche.

It doesn't make Andrew's presence more helpful.

Coulson doesn't reply to questions about Skye. He's good at that, at letting people think whatever they want to think about his feelings for her.

Andrew doesn't seem to mind his non-answers, but also doesn't take them as any sort of hint.

“What’s Skye’s relationship with Afterlife, now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask Skye.”

“I did. I want to know _your_ perception.”

Coulson scowls at him a lot.

“We didn’t talk about it. I don’t know…”

“You don’t know if she has any intention of taking a leadership role there.”

“No,” Coulson admits. “She told me about Raina’s prophesy, but…”

“Why do you think she didn’t tell you more?”

“Because I didn’t ask?” Coulson snarks more than replies. He’d have liked Skye to reassure him, though, to tell him that all she wants is to come back to SHIELD. To him.

“Why didn’t you ask? Why didn’t you tell her that you have a project — a proposal for her here?”

Coulson drags his hand over his face, as though he can rub away the annoyance, the frustration caused by Andrew’s questions. He can’t.

Without Skye's presence, with the absence of drugs and dull sensation of pain, all of the questions about Skye and about their relationship matter more. It's depressing and he doesn't want to think about it, just wants to drown in the memory of her lips on his hand.

(And he didn't use to be such a pathetic man. He swears he didn't use to be so pathetic, but then he remembers picking May up for missions, and the way she would roll her eyes when he was early.)

“I didn’t want to hear that she was...” Coulson sighs. “I just wanted to pretend.”

“Pretend?”

Coulson looks down at his feet, refuses to look back up. It’s juvenile and stupid, and he knows it won't make Andrew go away. He knows he'll feel like an ass when he looks back on it later.

But he still does it.

He's a terrible patient, at least when he's like this. (When he probably most needs the help.)

“That she would stay with me.”

“So you spent so much time _pretending_ that you didn't get around to _asking her_ to stay with you?”

“I want it to be her choice.”

“It can only be her choice if you let her know there's a choice to make.”

“Skye knows I want her here. She knows...”

“What does she know?”

Coulson finally looks back up at Andrew, just to scowl at him again, and is even more annoyed with his would-be therapist's smile.

“Phil,” Andrew shakes his head at him, “Skye only knows what you tell her. She only knows her options if you present them. She'll only tell you what she wants if you ask.”

Coulson swallows.

“Why are you asking about her and not about this?” He gestures awkwardly to his left arm.

“Would you like to talk about _that_?”

“No.”

Andrew laughs, way too at ease with all of this.

Coulson swallows and works up the courage to ask:

“What did Skye tell you about her plans?”

“Doctor/patient confidentiality,” Andrew claims.

“Yeah.”

There's a long silence between them, during which Coulson looks back at his lap and ignores Andrew's presence.

“You might feel better if you got dressed, you know. Really dressed.”

“I could barely get these on,” Coulson replies, snapping the elastic band on his sweats, “you can't possibly think I can manage a suit.”

“No, I don't. But I think you could ask for help.”

 

* * *

 

He avoids asking for help.

It's not that he's such a very proud man — he's sure he's not. He can't quite explain it except that he doesn't want to get dressed. He doesn't want to do anything.

 

* * *

 

“Why don't you want help?”

Andrew continues to be frustrating, but without Skye around, Coulson is grateful for his company.

“I don't know.”

“When's the last time you needed help with basic stuff like this?”

It's morbidly funny to him because Fury erased his memories of what happened after he died — he still doesn't have them, not fully, but there must have been time there when he was more than helpless. He supposes that doesn't count, though.

“That mission in Bolivia.”

The first time he saw Andrew as a doctor and not just May's boyfriend.

“You broke your leg,” Andrew recalls. “A bad one.”

“Yeah.”

“Melinda helped you around then.”

“She did. So did you.”

“But now, you're closing us both out.”

“I let you in here, didn't I?”

Andrew smiles, that easy charming smile of his.

“And are you going to let me help you get dressed?”

“What's the point?” Coulson asks, and it maybe gets to the heart of everything he's feeling.

“You can't run SHIELD from your bedroom. You can't run SHIELD in your sweats.”

“What's the point of running SHIELD?”

“You tell me.”

Coulson doesn't have an answer.

 

* * *

 

He visits Cal, since he figures someone needs to keep him company while Skye is gone. They're keeping him in Vault D, still, because there aren't any better options, yet.

It's not fair to Fitz or Simmons to have him roaming freely, and Cal hasn't put up a fight about it. He seems mostly grateful to be somewhere where he can see Skye. And besides, he's in there with all the personal items Skye could salvage — books and music and trinkets. Comfortable, at least.

Coulson thuds down into the chair. His balance is different, now, not quite stable, and every time he sits down is like a reminder that _everything_ is different now, even things that seem like they should be the same.

Cal smiles at him from his position on the bed.

“Hello, Phil.”

“Cal.”

There's a beat of silence.

“Have you heard from Daisy?”

“Not since she checked in when she got there.”

“You don't like that she's gone, either.”

“No, I guess I don't,” he admits.

Silence falls between them again.

“I'm sorry about your...” Cal points at his arm, and Coulson nods.

“Me, too.”

“Daisy said you caught one of the crystals to stop it from breaking. That you saved your people.”

“To be fair, I thought there was a small chance it wouldn't hurt me.”

Cal nods, and Coulson supposes Skye must have told him things. He knows she was coming down here regularly in between sitting at his bed.

“You came back from the dead, too.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Did people worry that you came back wrong?”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn't.”

He can't tell if that's a statement or a question.

“I was different,” he admits. “But a good different. Skye...she helped.”

Cal looks awkward, more like a man who doesn't know what to say and less like one who might go off at any minute. There's so much of Skye in his nervous head tilt, though, that Coulson can't help but smile.

“What are your intentions with my daughter?”

“My intentions?” He sort of chokes on the word.

Coulson doesn't know whether to cringe or laugh or just leave.

Cal stares him down, and the serious lines around his eyes add to the image of a man who might snap.

“I'm hoping she'll stay on with SHIELD.”

“You think that's in doubt? She's very committed to you.”

“Not to me,” Coulson shakes his head. “To SHIELD. Skye is a SHIELD agent.”

“She also cares about _you_.”

“I care about her.”

“Which is why I asked you about your intentions, Phil.”

“We're not...like that.”

“You're more than her boss. You're her family. You're not her father.” Cal raises an eyebrow at him. “What are you, exactly?”

Coulson doesn't have an answer for that, and there's another long silence between them. He's not sure it was the best idea to come down here.

“Back when I first met Jiaying, I was so in awe of her. She was so _good_ , you know? The kind of good that made me want to be a better man.”

“I can relate.”

Cal smiles at that.

“Daisy turned out good, didn't she?”

“Yes,” Coulson agrees. “She had a hard life, but somehow she's still...”

“Better than perfect,” Cal fills in.

“Yeah,” Coulson smiles into the word. She is, she's better than perfect.

Coulson just smiles into another silence that turns slowly more awkward. He wonders if it's like this for Skye, if all the silences feel dangerous, or maybe if he's just too on edge.

“The worst thing about saving Jiaying...about...bringing her back. Was looking at her and _seeing_ the woman I loved, but knowing she was different. That she wasn't that woman anymore.”

Coulson closes his eyes and takes in a deep, slow breath.

“That must have been hard.”

Cal sort of laughs, a broken sound.

“Do you know what it's like to want to save the woman you love? What it's like to fear what you've done to her?”

Coulson chokes a little bit, a half-laugh.

“Did Skye tell you about the time she was shot? Are you —”

“She was shot?” He panics, but Coulson is too caught up in his own memories to notice.

“She almost died. Technically she did; her heart stopped at least half a dozen times. I gave her the drug that was given to me.”

“The Kree blood?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you even know what it was?”

“No. For the longest time, I thought I had doomed her.”

“But at the same time, there was no way you couldn't save her.”

“Pretty much.”

Cal tilts his head as he considers him, and Coulson drops his eyes to his lap.

“That's why she found out, isn't it? That she was different.”

“Yes,” Coulson agrees.

“I guess it all turned out okay, then.”

“I guess it did.”

Coulson leans forward, ready to prop his elbows on his thighs, but is stopped by shooting pain near his left elbow. He winces and sits backwards.

“I'm glad she'll have you,” Cal tells him, as though he's conceding something big. “Once I'm gone.”

“Gone?”

“Didn't she tell you? I'm going to be a vet.”

Coulson nods. He hadn't gotten that detail, though he knows Skye has set all the gears in motion to set up a new identity.

“And I won't remember her, will I?”

“No,” he admits. “You won't.”

“That's hard to accept. She promised to visit, but I won't...”

“You won't know.”

“Do you think she will? That she'll visit?”

As though that would make it okay.

As though just knowing he'll get to have some relationship with her in the future will make it okay that he won't remember. Just the knowledge that Skye will continue to be a part of his life...

“Yes,” Coulson tells him. “The reason she suggested it is because she wants to see you live.”

“That's how she said it? That she wants to see me live?”

“Yes.”

Cal nods, seemingly at peace.

 

* * *

 

Skye calls him from what's left of Afterlife, where there remains a group of people who weren't a part of Jiaying's army.

“Gordon hid them underground,” she tells him. “All the people who hadn't been turned or who Jiaying thought might question her.”

“So there were people willing to question her?”

“Yeah. It will make the transition a lot easier. I mean, no one would believe me anyways, but they believe Lincoln and Alisha.”

“No one would believe you?”

He has a hard time getting into the headspace of someone who wouldn't trust Skye. Even theoretically.

“I'm an outsider,” she reminds him, and he can almost hear her roll her eyes at him, “and everyone was already suspicious because of how my terrigenesis happened.”

She had explained this to him — about how Jiaying controlled the process so that there was only one transformation every few years. How Skye jumped the line _and_ did it 'old school.'

“Are they all staying put?”

“No,” she answers. “Without Gordon, this place is too inaccessible — it just can't work for the community. Especially because most people have lives elsewhere and little reason to stay if they know they're never going to get turned.”

“So most of them have somewhere to go.”

“Yeah. Afterlife wasn't a home for very many people. They'll be fine.”

“And the ones who went through the process? Are there other communities of Inhumans for them to join if they want to?”

“Gordon said there were, but we have no way of knowing for sure. Lincoln and Alisha are trying to figure out if they can operate any sort of safe space, but for right now it looks like most people will go their own way.”

“Will they be safe?”

“They won't cause any problems —”

“Not what I asked,” he cuts her off.

“I know.”

There's a pause on her end.

“Skye?”

“I think they will? We'll have to watch out for them, though.”

“We...meaning SHIELD?”

“Yeah.” She answers like it's obvious.

“So you...you're coming home to stay?”

There's a pause on her end of the line.

“Of course,” she answers, sounding strange. “Did you think I wouldn't?”

“I...”

Coulson swallows.

“ _Of course_ I'm staying with SHIELD.”

There's a lot he wants to say — a lot of big conversations about home and about _them_.

“Good,” is all he manages, though.

He can hear her smile.

“I'll be home tomorrow,” she promises, and he shivers.

Skye has a complicated relationship with that word, with that idea of _home_ , so it means something when she uses it. When she uses it to talk about to Playground, about SHIELD, about...

(He can't even think about her considering _him_ as home.)

“I'll see you then.”

“Bye, Coulson.”

It's that phone call that makes him realize that _she_ is the answer to this question — to why SHIELD matters.

Because what he knows — and what he's always known, but what he has seen more than ever — is that it can't be about protecting humans and it can't be about protecting Inhumans. It can't be about factionalizing, it can't be about the bureaucracy.

It has to be about being a shield. It has to be about helping everyone.

Like Skye did. Like Skye has always done.

And SHIELD matters because it can do that...it can do that as long as Skye is a part of it. SHIELD matters because together, they can work that way.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Skye has been gone for almost two weeks, is due back in a few hours, when he finally breaks down and gets Andrew's help.

It turns out that maybe he  _is_ a proud man, though, because it's hard. Especially when Andrew brings up his hair. 

One-handed hair washing is a skill he hasn't learned (yet), it's true, and before he helps him get dressed, Andrew bends him over the bathroom sink and washes his hair.

It's more than a little awkward and too hot.

He doesn't complain, though.

“You'll figure this out in time,” Andrew promises him.

And he will, he knows it's true.

It's still awkward right now, since he's trying to keep the remainder of his dressings dry, but that won't always be the case. It's also probably got less to do with skill than with the fact that he hasn't cared about much of anything these weeks, certainly not about how he looks.

He tries to not think about what it means that Skye's return makes him care.

Andrew's too gentle, too afraid of hurting him, but he reaches the spot behind Coulson's left ear better than Coulson has been able to do.

After, he dries it and applies a little gel.

And yes, it helps to have clean hair and a clean suit and a tie. He feels more like himself. His suit...it feels less like armor, less like hiding himself, and more like finding himself. More like stepping into the role he wants to have.

Basically, Andrew was right, and he's not a little smug about it as he follows Coulson to his office.

(Coulson hasn't set foot in his office since before...everything.)

“I'd like to talk to you about doing an evaluation on my team.”

“Another official SHIELD assignment?”

“Yes. And another offer for you to join if you'd like.”

“You know my misgivings.”

“And I hope you realize that I share them.”

Andrew nods.

“I'll think about it. Talk it over with Melinda.”

Coulson smiles at that, at the fact that Andrew and May have been talking. It's a good thing. He'd never say it to May, but he has missed Andrew.

“But in the mean time, would you talk to my team?”

“How are _you_ feeling about your team?”

And Coulson supposes that this means he'll be the first patient.

“Like we pulled together in the end. And I would trust any one of them.”

“But Skye more than most,” Andrew supplies.

“Why are you so focused on my relationship with Skye?”

“You mean besides the fact that it's clearly important to you and an important component of every decision you make?”

“Are you suggesting it's unhealthy?”

He wonders what May has told Andrew.

“No,” Andrew replies easily. “I'm trying to understand it and what it means for your team.”

Coulson closes his eyes, remembers everyone telling him that he couldn't be trusted when it comes to Skye.

He had had his moment of self doubt, but the fact is that he trusts Skye. He trusts her with anything. And because he trusted her, they were able to avoid a much bigger conflict.

“It's a good thing,” Coulson finally tells him. “It's a good thing that I trust her.”

“You just had a lot of people questioning whether it was a good thing, didn't you?”

“And they were wrong,” Coulson points out. “If I hadn't trusted her, most of SHIELD might have run right into a trap.”

Andrew smiles at that.

“She's overcome a lot in a very short time.”

“Yes,” Coulson agrees, though he doesn't see it as terribly out of the ordinary for Skye. There's a reason he never _really_ believed she'd have to leave SHIELD, and it wasn't _entirely_ selfish.

“And you want to give her more responsibility.”

“If you think she can handle it.”

“I'll talk to her when she gets back. And everyone else.”

“But, since last time you were here...”

“Unofficially, I'm pleased with the changes I see in her so far. She's come through a lot of trauma with remarkable resiliency.”

“Skye is very resilient,” Coulson agrees.

“And she's very devoted to you.”

He opens his mouth to challenge that, but Andrew beats him to it.

“It's not a bad thing, Phil. I think it could be a good thing.”

Coulson swallows at that assessment and nods once.

“But I think you owe her a conversation about what you want from her.”

“You say that as though I know the answer to that.”

“I say that as though you need to figure out the answer to that.”

 

* * *

 

Skye knocks on the frame of his open door while he's sitting at his desk, looking over blueprints for a possible mobile base.

He's startled, and then immediately smiles at her.

“Hi,” she greets him as she sort of _saunters_ into the room, too slow and hips swaying. “Look who's out of bed?” 

He stands from his desk and circles towards her, even though he's not sure why.

“Skye.”

Coulson stops in front of her, suddenly awkward and unsure of  _why_ he's felt the need to stand up and meet her except that he wanted to.

“How'd you manage this?” She touches the knot of his tie with her index finger — a very light touch, one he can't even feel. Her finger takes a very slow trail down his chest, brushing lightly over his tie the whole way, and he desperately wishes that he could feel it.

“Andrew helped me,” he answers, words a little breathless against a sudden rush of arousal.

“You look _good_ , sir.”

She smirks up at him, so close he can almost feel her breath, and her hand flattens against the widest point of his tie, just below his sling.

And he's not sure what this means, just that he likes it. Just that he doesn't want to do anything to make it stop.

“So do you.”

Skye smiles at that.

“There's nothing different about me.”

“No, there is,” he promises her, raising his hand to brush his index finger along her cheekbone.

How could she not be changed by everything that's happened to her? But what's incredible is that she doesn't seem sad or beaten down. No, she's more confident, he thinks. More confident than he's ever seen her.

She leans into his hand, until he's cupping her face, fingers sliding behind her ear while his thumb continues to brush her cheekbone.

And he has no idea what this is, not really. But that doesn't stop him from touching her with more intimacy than he knows he should.

“Did you miss me?”

“You know I did.”

Her hand curls against his stomach — just below the bottom of his tie, just above his belt — and Coulson sucks in a sharp gasp at the sensation.

“How much?”

And he feels like a child, like there are rules in play here that he doesn't really understand. Like he's not sure how to tell if they're on the same page or not; he's barely sure what page  _he's_ on.

“Skye...”

His stumbling answer is cut off when May walks in.

Coulson's hand slides from Skye's face, her hand falls from his stomach, and they turn together to face May — he watches silently as Skye and May face each other.

There's a tense moment where he realizes that it's not just between him and Skye that the rules have suddenly changed. Her relationship with May is fundamentally altered as well, after what happened at Afterlife.

“Good to see you, Skye,” May greets her, not cold but not friendly either.

“May,” Skye nods.

Coulson looks back and forth between them for a moment before turning his attention to May.

“I just spoke to Agent Weaver. They've finished restoring the carrier.”

“Good.”

There's an awkward silence.

“Are you going to maintain the council?”

Coulson swallows and looks over at Skye.

“I don't want to do this by myself. But I can't do it with a council more interested in self-preservation than in saving the world.”

Skye smiles at him, and he smiles back.

“So what's the solution?” May isn't smiling, and he knows that _their_ relationship has been fundamentally altered as well. 

“I don't know. I'm open to discussion.”

She nods, once, and looks like she might leave.

“May,” he calls her back before she has a chance to move. He doesn't know what to say.

“I know, Phil.”

She leaves the room after another short pause that he doesn't know how to fill.

“She really didn't take it well that you hid Theta Protocol from her, did she?”

“No.” That's an understatement.

“Why didn't you tell her?”

“I don't know,” he answers, shaking his head. “I discussed the plan with Fury and Hill so soon after I found about TAHITI and I just...”

Skye laughs.

“A little vindictive, isn't it? Having your own secret with Nick Fury to rival hers?”

“It's more complicated than that.” He frowns, though, because he doesn't have an answer. “I just hope she can forgive me.”

“She will.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because you did the right thing. Because even if you're infuriating and you lie and you hide things, you're still going to do the right thing. And May knows that.”

Skye's easy faith in that, after everything, makes him smile.

“There's a project I want to discuss with you. Nothing concrete, yet, and I don't want you to jump back into this too quickly.”

“No?”

“No. We all need a break and a chance to...readjust.”

“Why don't you tell me a little what you're thinking about,” Skye suggests, and they sit down at his desk to talk.

 

* * *

 

They end up spending most of the day together, separating only when Skye takes dinner down to eat with her father.

He's surprised, though, when she shows up at his bedroom door as he's about ready to turn in.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

They stand on either side of the door frame, and Skye runs her eyes down his jacket before sucking in a nervous breath.

“I thought you might like some help,” she offers. “Since Andrew seems a little, um...busy.”

He and May went out again; talking seems to have turned a little more serious.

Coulson smiles sort of awkwardly, and looks down at his feet.

“You don't have to —”

“I know that,” Skye scoffs at him. “I'm offering.”

“Thank you,” he manages, though he can't quite meet her eyes.

He steps backwards, inviting her into his space, and she follows him.

“How are you healing?”

“Well. Simmons says that it's coming along better than she'd hoped.”

“Good.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Sometimes,” he answers because he doesn't have a better way to put it in to words.

She nods sadly, and they stand awkwardly for a moment before Skye seems to make a decision to take charge — instead of stripping him, though, she takes a seat in his chair.

“What can you do by yourself?”

Like she's asking him to impress her.

Coulson swallows and slides his sling over his shoulder. 

Next comes his jacket — easy enough to slide off, but hanging it up will be a more challenging task.

“I'll take it,” Skye offers, and Coulson hands her his jacket, watching her turn to the closet.

She finds an empty hanger, and then turns to make sure it's the right one before hanging it up. She stays there, leaning against his closet, once she's done.

“You can keep going now,” she tells him, and Coulson can feel his face heat up at the insinuation that he was waiting for her to keep stripping.

Which, he guesses he kind of was.

Getting his tie off one handed isn't much of a challenge — he's done this before — and when she stretches out her hand, he tosses the garment to her, watching as she pulls the knot all the way out and threads the material through her fingers. He directs her to his tie rack and watches as she carefully puts it away.

“Can you do your shirt?”

Coulson attacks the top button with his right hand, and to his credit he  _does_ get the button open, but it's more of a struggle than he wants to put up with. 

“You'll get better at it, I bet,” Skye tells him, but finally saunters over into his space.

He holds his breath as her hands reach out and land on his chest, a light touch that makes him shiver, but then her fingers move quickly and professionally down the line of buttons — no extra touches, nothing else to make him shudder against her. Once it's fully open and tugged out of his slacks, exposing his undershirt beneath it, he shrugs it off and Skye takes it from him.

The end of his amputated arm is wrapped in tight compression bandages that Simmons has been changing daily — it's not like it looks gross, but he can't help looking at Skye, searching for any trace of disgust.

He sees none.

“Dirty laundry?”

He directs her towards his hamper and watches as she throws it in. She does the same with his socks, kneeling down to pick them up once he toes them off, and the image of Skye kneeling at his feet shouldn't do things to him.

It really does, though, and he feels a rush of inconvenient arousal. Because what he _really_ needs is a partial erection as Skye is helping him out of his clothes. Out of self preservation more than anything, Coulson starts to fiddle with his belt before she can offer to touch him there.

Skye's eyes stay on him as he works, but it's not that hard — much easier to get it off than on — and then he can get the button at the top of his pants.

When he looks up at her, he's more than a little surprised to see her watching with interest. There's none of the resignation or boredom he's expecting in her expression, and when she realizes he's watching her back, he could swear she blushes.

It does _not_ help the fact that his cock is mostly hard.

“Your pajamas?”

“I can take it from here,” he tells her as he heads to the dresser and removes his SHIELD issue sweats and t-shirt. And he can — he has dressed himself in elastic waist sweats plenty of times in the last two weeks.

“Okay,” she agrees, and he releases a breath of of relief. “Just remember that you don't have to.”

“I don't?”

“Just because you can manage something on your own...you don't have to. You can ask for help.”

“That applies to bigger things than putting on my pajamas.”

“True. It also applies to putting on your pajamas.”

He smiles at that and follows her towards his door.

“ _Getting_ dressed is the hard part,” he jokes as she opens it and stands just outside the frame.

“Then I'll come by in the morning. You're going to have to teach me how to tie your tie, though.”

“You don't —”

She just raises an eyebrow at him, cuts him off mid-sentence without so much as a word.

“Goodnight, Coulson, I'll see you in the morning.”

And then she leans in to press her lips against his cheek. It's warm, a solid press of her face against his, and he breathes in deeply as her hair brushes his nose.

His right hand presses against her back, holding her to him for a hair longer than she might have otherwise stayed, but she makes no move to pull back until he releases her.

“Goodnight, Skye,” he whispers as she turns to walk away. “Thank you.”

She turns to look at him over her shoulder, a soft smile thrown back before she disappears from sight.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, he bathes and dresses himself as much as he can.

And actually, he can do most of it by himself. It's only when he's in his slacks and an undershirt with an open button-down over it that he needs help.

They didn't discuss timing, but he knows her schedule. Or, what her schedule used to be. She and May would usually be in the gym until 6:30, then shower and be ready for breakfast at seven. So he's not at all surprised when she knocks on his door about ten minutes to seven.

It's a mild struggle to get out of his chair, but he's getting better at this — at getting around, at feeling like he's not completely hopeless.

“Hi,” she greets him when he opens the door, revealing Skye in a pair of tight black jeans and a white shirt. He loves this outfit, the way the shirt hugs her body, the way it's tucked in in front.

“Morning.”

He steps backwards into his room and Skye follows. For a moment, he can feel her taking him in and then looking back at the bed where he's laid out the items he needs help with — socks, belt, tie.

She selects his socks and raises her eyebrows at him, silently asking him to get into position. Which he does. 

Again, though, Skye kneeling in front of him is...more than he can handle. He wonders if it would be strange for the director of SHIELD to wear sandals, and then Skye's fingers brush along the top of his foot and he can't believe he'd try to find ways to make  _this_ not happen. 

He clears his throat.

“Were you down in the gym?”

“Yeah,” she nods as she slides a sock over his right foot. “I did tai chi with May.”

He's surprised by that — by the fact that they can fall back into a pattern so quickly — and Skye must notice.

“It wasn't totally comfortable. I mean, she's right to be upset with me, still.”

“You were making the best choice you knew to make.”

“I threw her at least twenty feet,” she counters as she slips the other sock over his foot.

The conversation helps, keeps him focused on something other than her and the way he shivers every time she touches him.

“And she was fine. You did nothing unforgivable.”

She finishes with his socks, but she doesn't move or reach for his shoes. Instead, she shakes her head and drops her right hand on his knee for stability.

“It must be hard for her, though. I got so caught up in thinking about it from my perspective that I didn't think about it from hers.”

“You had a lot to deal with, and May isn't the most diplomatic in moments of crisis,” Coulson reasons. “We all get that —”

“I know,” she assures him, smiles at him. “I also know it's uncomfortable for her. To have me...change. It must have brought up a lot of stuff.”

“It did,” Coulson agrees. “And May is dealing with it. It only gets easier from here.”

Skye smiles, like there's nothing in the world she'd like to believe more.

“I just wish I could do something to —”

“You saved the world,” he reminds her, cupping her cheek gently. “No one doubts that you'll always do the right thing.”

Skye leans her face into his palm and smiles up at him for a half second, and then reaches for his shoes.

“You haven't really seen my powers, yet. I thought for sure you'd be interested.” Her head is down, watching as he slides his feet into the shoes, and then she starts making neat bows in the laces.

“I am,” he blurts, a little too excited, but swallows back more excitement as he tries to play at having some dignity. “You know I'm just glad to have you back here, though.”

She's grinning when she looks up at him, both shoes tied.

“Yeah, I do.”

She stands up and takes his right hand, pulling him to standing with her.

“We could arrange a demonstration if you want,” she offers as she starts to work on his shirt buttons.

“I'd like that. What...”

“What can I do?”

Coulson manages to just nod, to avoid being too embarrassing, he hopes.

“I caused an avalanche,” she tells him, her excited grin utterly belying her nonchalant tone.

It makes him laugh — not the scope of her powers, but her excitement, the way she's ready to take ownership of them.

“How does it work?”

She finishes his buttons and he tucks in his shirt while she retrieves his belt from the bed. Of course, tucking in his shirt one-handed is a bit sloppy, and Skye smooths it, dips her fingers under the waistband of his slacks as she straightens him out.

“Everything vibrates,” she tells him as she reaches her arms around his waist, threading his belt through the loops, and it's incredibly intimate in a way that fogs his brain, makes it hard to understand what she's saying at first.

“Everything is _already_ vibrating,” he clarifies.

“Yeah.”

He grits his teeth when she brings together both ends of the belt, willing himself to stay calm. He's so concerned with his own nerves that it takes moment to realize that she's gone silent, too, and her fingers are shaking.

“Skye,” he whispers, calling her gaze up to meet his. She finally threads the belt through the buckle and pulls it tight around his waist as she looks up into his eyes.

“Too tight?”

“Just right,” he corrects. And she doesn't look down, keeps looking up at him as she finishes.

“You...you're the loudest thing in the room right now,” she tells him. “If I listen, I can feel it, and I can...interfere.”

“On a person?”

“I haven't tried on a person,” she shakes her head. “I wouldn't want to hurt you. I just meant that right now...I...”

She blushes and reaches past him for his tie.

“I saw the video feed from the cabin, of you defending yourself from Gonzales's men.”

“I can move the air, too. I need to practice it more. That's...that's what I did to May.”

He runs his hand down her arm, a gesture of comfort and support that earns him a smile.

“One of the things that Jiaying had me do was change the vibrations on glasses of water.”

“So you could play music,” he breathes, more than a little charmed at the idea.

“Yeah. She told me that even if my powers are destructive, I have the potential to do something beautiful, too.”

He can sense it before it happens, a breakdown at the mention of her mother, so he gathers her against his chest before it even begins. And it would be easier to hold her with two hands, but the way she curls in against him makes him feel anything but inadequate.

“It's okay,” he whispers against the side of her head, stroking her back.

She nods against his chest and heaves a shuddering breath; he can't help but wonder if she's taken the time to properly grieve, to properly mourn for her family — for the family she almost had, that she thought she had.

“I told her...it's what all the kids in an orphanage dream of, you know? Finding your parents.”

“And you did.”

“By the time I was tracking SHIELD, I had given up on that, you know.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And then...there they were.”

“Didn't work out like you wanted,” he half-jokes, and earns a half-laugh in return.

“SHIELD...it's a good family. I'm glad I have it.” She presses her forehead to his shoulder, as though emphasizing him as part of SHIELD. “But it's not my parents, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” Because he really _really_ does.

Her eyes are still dry when she pulls back with an embarrassed smile.

“Sorry. I feel like I'm right at the edge of a breakdown all the time lately.”

“You don't have to apologize for that,” he reminds her, “especially not to me.”

She lets out a quiet burst of sad laughter and shakes her head.

“We're quite a pair, hmm?”

“I guess we are,” he answers, smiling a little too much at such a sad joke.

Still, it turns the air between them, makes everything feel more relaxed, which is good because Skye has to step even closer to him as she threads his tie through his collar.

He's surprised, though, when she begins to make a knot without any instruction.

“I thought you said you didn't know how to do this?”

“I didn't,” she agrees. “But I watched some Youtube videos and practiced on a scarf.”

She grins up at him, and he's unexpectedly touched that she would go through the trouble of practicing, just for him.

He looks down, trying to watch her fingers as she works, but it requires moving his neck too much. Instead, he watches her face — the expression of concentration, the way she mouths instructions to herself as she goes.

His eyes go too soft — he can feel it, feel the way he's looking at her — but he can't help it.

When she finishes, her fingers still linked into the collar of his shirt, she throws a proud smile up at him — and then looks surprised to find that their faces are so close together. Surprise quickly melts into something else, though.

He can feel her exhale — the stream of air from her nose hits his chin — but she doesn't pull back.

Coulson swallows, as though he could swallow back this pressing urge to push forward, and Skye's eyes dart down to his throat.

“Thank you,” he whispers, voice too quiet and too low and too soft. It seems to draw Skye's attention to his mouth, and he watches in fascination as she sucks her lower lip past her teeth. Just the idea that she could be entertaining the thought of kissing him is too much. Too much to handle.

Coulson curves his right hand behind her, lays his palm flat against her lower back, and presses her closer.

He can tell the moment she feels his arousal because her lips fall open — a tiny gasp of surprise and then a slow exhale as she gets even closer, presses her lower belly against him even more.

“Oh,” she whispers as her eyes dart from his lips to his eyes and then back.

“Skye.”

And this is it, he knows.

There's no layer of deniablity here, not when he's pressing her body against his cock, not when she's _pressing herself_ against his cock.

Still, he's nervous as he angles his head, nervous when he can feel her breath against his lips — eager and coming too fast.

Which is when Andrew knocks and then pokes his head through the door.

“Phil, I thought you might —”

They jump like they've been shocked, but don't really part. Instead, she stays standing right in front of him, and before she turns to face Andrew, she finally drags her eyes all the way up to meet his. He watches, fascinated, as her lips curve into a promising smile.

“I see you got help from someone else,” Andrew finishes magnanimously as Skye finally turns around.

“Yeah. I even managed the tie,” she tells him, smiling proudly.

“That's excellent,” Andrew praises, and Skye grins as though it's directed at her, but Coulson knows better. Especially when Andrew nods at him.

And whether it's for allowing  _anyone_ in or whether it's for allowing  _her_ in, he's not sure. He's not sure it matters, either. 

Skye seems to push aside any potential awkwardness and instead reaches back onto the bed for Coulson's jacket, though she lets him do most of the work of putting it on.

“I wanted to tell you that Melinda is making pancakes. If you're interested.”

“Wait,” Skye steps away from him as he finishes and then shrugs into his sling. “May cooks?” She looks from Andrew to him and back.

Coulson shrugs at that — there was a time when he had breakfast with May and Andrew semi-regularly, but it's seemed such a small thing about her that got lost. Andrew smiles widely, though, like it's big — like it means something that May is in the kitchen.

He supposes it does.

“I hear you and she had a good workout this morning.”

Andrew is cautious, but Skye smiles easily.

“I think we'll be okay,” she agrees, before turning back to Coulson, who's finally more or less dressed.

“Pancakes?”

And he'd like to forget about breakfast and go back to where they were — back to Skye's breath on his chin and Skye's hips pressed to his and Skye's fingers on his neck and Skye's lips within an inch of his — but this new sense of normalcy is important, too.

She stays next to him as they walk down to breakfast.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Of course the world conspires to keep him from having a moment alone with her.

There's breakfast, which is a nice affair, and then a chat with Agent Weaver.

He can't remember the last time a chat with Agent Weaver was a nice affair.

It's uncomfortable — a feeling out of where they stand, a negotiation of how things should work...but not explicit. No, they're specifically _not_ talking about what the role of a council should be or who should be on it, they're talking about the deployment of the aircraft carrier. But it's there all the same.

Skye sits on his left and joins in freely, like this is her obvious place.

Which, in his opinion, it is.

Agent Weaver seems less certain, and also like she's not willing to express that uncertainty.

“That was unpleasant,” he sighs when they finally end the call.

“She really doesn't like you, does she?”

“It's not that,” he shakes his head. “They were all scared. And in a lot of ways, what happened fit right into their idea of a worst case scenario. And I refused to take their side.”

“But you and I both know that if they had been free to respond how they wanted, things would have gotten so much worse. You saved them from themselves as much as anything.”

“And I got a spot on the Index for my trouble.”

Skye's face goes pensive, and Coulson turns in his chair so he can reach for her hand.

“We need to talk about how that should go.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, looking wary of him, even as she squeezes his hand reassuringly. “I know that Jiaying was basically crazy and it doesn't help my case to look at it from her perspective, but —”

“People wouldn't have been so easily misled by her if there weren't real fears.”

“It's just...marching into a community and demanding to catalog them isn't what I want SHIELD to do.”

“I don't want that either,” he promises because yes, things were complicated, but it isn't hard to see it — that SHIELD's assumption that they deserved to be welcomed, that they deserved to make those demands, was itself an act of aggression.

He can admit when he's wrong.

“But I also know that the way you've used the Index has helped people.”

“That's what I want to do.”

“I guess this is a question that needs to be run by the council, huh?”

“No,” he answers too quickly, and then releases her hand in order to rub his eyes. “I don't know.”

When he looks at her again, she's smiling, but he wants to make sure she understands that he knows the _right_ side of this.

“I won't have them making these choices out of fear and self-preservation. That's not what the Index should be about.”

“You're pretty smart,” Skye praises him with a smile that makes his heart stutter in his chest, makes all of the breath leave his body.

“I think Weaver is more concerned I'm insane,” he jokes, trying to lighten things.

“I'm sorry you had to deal with everyone questioning your sanity.”

“I was questioning it, too, at points,” he admits. “Even May agreed that I clearly wasn't able to make the best decisions, especially when it comes to you.”

“No,” she corrects him, sliding closer. “You've always made _very_ _good_ decisions when it comes to me.”

“Always?”

“Yeah,” she smiles through the word, “pretty much.”

And he thinks that what's been going on with Skye has been like a negotiation, too. Not explicitly, but feeling each other out, trying to see if they're on the same page. Which he thinks they are.

This time, he's more aware of Skye tilting her head, of Skye moving towards him, of Skye _definitely about to kiss him_ , when they're interrupted by Simmons.

Who, thankfully, doesn't seem to understand what she walked in on.

“Sir, you're late,” she informs him, and he was supposed to be in the lab ten minutes ago so she could check up on his wound.

“I apologize, Agent Simmons. Things ran long with Agent Weaver.”

Simmons's face goes pensive, and she darts her eyes from him to Skye.

“Is everything okay with that group?”

“Yeah,” Skye reassures her, standing from behind the desk and offering Coulson her hand. He takes it, allows her to pull him up. “Just politics.”

“You did very well, dealing with the politics,” Coulson tells her.

“Especially when my very existence has become political?”

“Not just yours.”

She smiles at him, a sad smile — like she doesn't wish for him to be in this situation, but can't quite regret having company here.

Simmons clears her throat and looks at her watch before shooting Coulson a pointed look. He ignores it.

“Are you going to go see your father?”

“Yeah. I figure...”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and grips her hand harder for a moment.

Nothing about this is easy, but he's just so impressed with her, with the way she handles everything.

“I'll find you later,” she promises.

 

* * *

 

He has a session with Andrew after his time with Simmons.

And it's weird, seeing a shrink who is also your friend, because he loses track of the line. Was the Andrew who washed his hair the doctor or the friend?

Of course, he thinks it's probably easier for Andrew, who has probably never really thought of him as _that_  much of a friend. He was May's friend first, after all.

It bothers him to think back about the days when he spent too much time with May and Andrew, when he didn't have any close (let alone romantic) relationships, when he cared so little for life outside of SHIELD, when he didn't really understand May's desire to keep a line between SHIELD and her home life. 

He was a pathetic man, back then. He's not sure if he's more pathetic now.

“You seem to be doing well,” Andrew tells him as they sit across from each other in a small closed-off lounge area that Andrew has adopted for an office.

“I suppose I am. Simmons says I'm healing well.”

“Not what I meant.”

Coulson nods because he knows that.

“Have you grieved, yet, Phil?”

“I'm not sure,” he answers honestly. “There was a little while where I couldn't figure out the purpose in everything.”

“Do I even need to ask what changed that for you? Or rather, _who_?”

Now that he's a little more outside of his own head, Coulson can recognize the tactic that Andrew is using — attempting to pull him out by capitalizing on his annoyance and embarrassment. Honestly, though, after this morning, Coulson actually needs to talk about it.

“Skye represents what I want SHIELD to be,” Coulson says. “She always has, from the first day I met her.”

Andrew looks a little shocked by his honesty, by his willingness to talk.

“And once you knew she had continued interest in being a part of SHIELD, you knew SHIELD was worth keeping up.”

“Yes,” he answers honestly.

“What about your feelings for her?”

Coulson swallows.

“That's more complicated.”

“So who made the move on whom this morning?”

He thinks Andrew is _maybe_ trying not to smile.

“I didn't _get_ to make a move this morning,” Coulson grumbles at him, still frustrated about it.

Andrew's _almost_ smile becomes an actual smile.

“I apologize.”

Coulson has to laugh at that — at his therapist apologizing for cockblocking him.

“Have you and Skye talked yet?”

“No. I'm still not sure what to say.”

“Well, what are your feelings for her?”

“I love her,” Coulson answers, too honest. “When I thought I was going to die...I thought of her.”

“With regret?”

“Yes. Because the last time I saw her, I wanted to hug her. But it seemed wrong in the moment. Everyone was watching.”

“So you kept your distance, and you regretted it.”

“I don't want to regret it,” he tells Andrew.

“And what do you want from her? Have you defined that for yourself?”

“I'm...technically...her boss,” Coulson reminds him. “I don't feel comfortable defining that.”

“She's your employee,” Andrew counters, “with a host of abandonment issues all tied to moments when she decided to make herself vulnerable. You can't tell me that you expect _her_ to be the one to make this explicit?”

“We're going to be stuck in limbo forever, aren't we?”

It's a joke, but it's also disconcerting.

 

* * *

 

By the time she does find him, it's late, and he's already gotten Hunter to help him out of his more difficult items of clothing.

Her knock comes when he's already in bed, propped against the headboard and trying to care about fictional characters in a novel.

Tonight, at least, he _really_ doesn't care.

“Hi,” Skye greets him, pushing her head into his room. “Do you mind if I...”

“Come in,” he invites her and sets his tablet aside, though without moving from under his covers. He's already removed the sling, and he finds himself strangely self-conscious without it — even though she saw him without it just this morning. That was transitory, though, whereas it feels like if she sees him now, she'll realize it's permanent.

So he doesn't move from bed, just watches as she closes the door behind her.

She's in her pajamas, too, and she spends all of three seconds in nervous contemplation before heading towards his bed.

Once she steps into the halo of light cast by his reading lamp, he can see that her eyes are red and puffy — that she's clearly been crying.

“What's wrong?”

Skye just shakes her head and gingerly takes a seat on the edge of the bed.

“It's just been... There were some emotional conversations, I guess.”

“Plural?”

“Yeah,” she puffs out a sound like laughter. “My dad. And May. And Simmons. And Andrew. And Bobbi.”

She shakes her head.

“It's been a rough time,” Coulson sighs, “for everyone.”

“Yeah.”

Skye pulls her legs up and sits cross-legged on the bed, and then contemplates him for a long moment.

“You didn't tell me that you went to see my dad.”

“It didn't seem that important.” He shrugs.

“It must have been a good conversation. He approves of you, now.”

“Is that important?”

Coulson can feel himself flush at the implications — at the memory of Cal's question about his _intentions_ with Skye.

“It doesn't hurt.” Her voice is teasing, but there's something serious about her, too. “I've never had my father's approval about a boy before.”

He swallows and shifts on the bed to try to face her, to try to have this conversation.

“Am I a boy?” He tries to make it teasing back, but it comes out so serious, so nervous. He's almost surprised his voice doesn't crack.

“Aren't you?”

They stare at each other for a moment, revelatory and awkward and a lot of things he'd swear he hasn't felt since he was sixteen. (Or since he sat next to her in an airplane, telling her far too much about how he's always seen her.)

“Yeah,” he finally manages, lips curling into a slow smile.

Her smile in return is marred, though, by her trembling lower lip. She rolls her eyes, clearly exasperated with herself.

“I'm sorry,” she whispers, shaking her head and wiping her fingers across her eyes, even though they're dry. “It's just...”

“You don't have to apologize.”

“I know.” She shakes her head and then looks down at his duvet, tracing her finger around the blocks of blue and grey. “I have everything set up for him, now.”

“Already?”

Coulson's a little surprised — he'd thought for sure she would take more time.

“I finished his identity while I was gone. May secured the space and FitzSimmons have the protocol ready. I just... I wanted to be ready.”

“He seems okay with things,” Coulson tries, hoping to hit on something that will make her feel a little better.

“He is. I mean, I think he feels genuine remorse and sees it as the best way forward. And I promised I would come see him. It's just...I won't really be seeing my dad again, will I?”

Coulson closes his eyes.

“We can think of another way, you know. Or wait longer.”

“No,” Skye smiles at him, such a sad smile his heart might break. “I don't want to drag it out anymore. And we can't let him go free. This is...this is the best option.”

And he's been here before — before with the choice to move his mother into an assisted care facility, the long goodbyes as she lost herself, the visits with a woman who no longer knew him, the uncomfortable feeling of _relief_ when she finally passed. But the way Skye is facing it, he thinks, is so much worse.

She loses it a little, this iron grip she seems to have kept on her emotions since she walked into his room, and he can't keep his distance at all when she drags her hands over her eyes again, wiping away tears.

“Skye,” he sighs her name and reaches for her, glad she's on his right so he can tug her towards him, into a hug.

She moves easily, shifting into his embrace without a second thought, and he just holds her as she molds herself against him, head on his shoulder. If she's bothered by the sight of his left arm, bandaged below the elbow, she doesn't let on. Instead, she cuddles against him, drawing deep breaths as though she's taking strength from him — strength he's glad to offer.

He's not sure how much time passes like that, just the two of them quiet and still and together. It's some time later, though, when he breaks the silence.

“What else got you crying today?”

Skye shakes her head against his shoulder and sighs so he can feel her breath against his neck.

“Everyone trying to blame themselves for what Ward did to Bobbi.”

“That's on me,” Coulson tells her. “I was desperate and stupid. I gave him an opening.”

“Simmons tried to kill him, you know. She says if she had succeeded...”

“She wouldn't have had to if I hadn't made that call.”

There's a beat between them, and then Skye voices something that he's surprised he hasn't had to answer to before.

“Why _did_ you make that call?”

“I needed the in with Hydra,” he sighs.

“For me, or for the scepter?”

“Both,” he answers. “Agent Peterson had found compelling evidence that Gordon was somehow connected to the string of dead bodies coming out of Strucker's labs.”

“You didn't know they were tracking him,” she sighs, like suddenly it makes sense. “You thought he might...”

He swallows against the image of what he thought Gordon might have done, might have helped do, to Skye.

“I didn't know.”

“What they did to Lincoln...”

“I was scared they were going to do that to you.”

It had haunted him. And actually, Agent Peterson's intelligence had come so close to the moment he learned about Skye's gift that it had haunted him from the moment he knew Skye could conceivably become a target. When he couldn't find her, it had been a fight to keep the images of mutilated bodies out of his mind, to keep from imagining one of them with her face.

He clutches her against him, one arm not enough to hold her as tightly as he wants to, but she catches on to what he needs and holds him back, curling her right arm tighter around his chest.

“I never should have taken you to the retreat,” he tells her, finally releasing her enough to smooth his hand down her back.

“Because me being here with the trigger happy SHIELD guys would have been so much better?”

Coulson makes a noise — a laugh or a sob or something in between.

“I guess not.”

Sometimes it feels like there will never be a good answer, an acceptable answer, an answer that doesn't lead to pain and death and heartache.

“Do you ever want to run?” He asks her, voice quiet and hand pressed intimately to her lower back.

“With you?”

“Yeah,” he answers against the top of her head. “With me.”

“The world needs us,” she reasons quietly, though her hand begins to rub across his belly — a light, sensual touch that makes his abdomen contract hard. Before he has a chance to counter her statement, she continues, “but it's hard sometimes because what has the world ever done for us?”

And it's a real question, even though she's tossing it off like a joke, but it's also so simple. He presses his hand against her back and cranes his neck so that he can mostly meet her eyes.

“It gave me you,” he offers, at which Skye sucks in a deep, slow breath and tilts her head to meet his gaze full on.

It's breathtaking to watch the smile crawl over her face, to watch her move from despairing to such utter happiness.

“Yeah,” she agrees, “it did.”

Her eyes dart down to his mouth, and he thinks for a moment that she'll kiss him. Instead, she looks down further to his chest; he feels her hand slide slowly upwards until it's pressed over his heart.

“I think about it sometimes,” she tells him quietly. “How you were supposed to be dead, but then you weren't. And sometimes I think you must have come back just for me.”

His heart beats too fast, his breath speeding up.

“Can I see it?” She pushes down over his heart when she asks, and he nods nervously.

Her hands are gentle as she tugs his shirt up until the scar is exposed, and then she shocks him by lowering her forehead and pressing it there, over his heart.

“If I hadn't died, you might never have had to go through all of this,” he whispers, daring to touch her back again as she settles against him, sliding so her cheek rests over his heart, skin to skin.

“No, Coulson,” she sighs, softly chastising him. “You don't get to take any of the blame for that. None.”

He nods, once, and supposes she can feel the gesture even if she can't see it.

 

* * *

 

They fall asleep like that, Skye curled almost protectively over his bare chest, and he doesn't wake up until she stirs against him in the very early hours of the morning.

“No, stay,” he sighs, still half-asleep when his chest is suddenly much colder without her on top of it. He rolls towards her, propping himself on his side, chasing after the warmth.

“Shh,” she answers.

He can feel her stretch against him and then press the full length of her body against his — head burrowed into his shoulder, his right arm curled under her body, their stomachs touching. And then her knee wiggles between his thighs.

Coulson groans when her leg presses up against his erection, can't quite stop himself from pushing his hips back against her, grinding down against her thigh so that his vision goes white

“Oh fuck,” he whispers against the top of her head. “Skye.”

She makes a sound — sleepy and sexy and mostly a moan — and then he feels her lips just above the collar of his shirt. Hot, wet kisses fall against the base of his neck and then up higher — pleasant and warm. And when she bites down under his ear, it's like she's found a direct line to his cock.

“Shit,” he grunts and grinds himself down harder against her thigh as her breaths come in soft pants just beneath his earlobe.

It's when she finally closes her teeth on his lobe that he loses it, that he rolls her all the way onto her back and follows easily —

Until the sharp reminder that he can't prop himself on his left hand, can't hold himself above her like he means to. It's almost enough to kill the mood for him, but Skye catches on quickly and rolls him onto his back.

She seats herself on top of him, straddling his hips, and looks down.

“Do you want to stop?”

She asks the question as she presses herself against his cock — still mostly hard — and moves her hand back under his shirt. Which means it's not much of a question.

“No,” he sighs. “I just...”

He doesn't finish, doesn't really know what he means to say except that he's still not adjusted to this, yet, to the idea that things will be different.

“I know.” Then she stops. “Well, no. I don't.”

It makes him smile.

“I just want to give you whatever you need,” he tells her, whispered words in the dark as his right hand lands on her hip and begins a lazy trail up her body, under her shirt. And he wants it so much — to feel the smooth skin of her belly with both hands, to cup her breasts with both hands, to tug off her shirt with both hands.

It's still dark — still early even for Skye who gets up before dawn — so he can barely see the shape of her naked body as he tosses her shirt off the side of the bed, but the dim light illuminates all the curves of her.

“ _You're_ what I need,” Skye tells him, ducking her head down like maybe she's embarrassed, so he can see the waterfall of her hair cover her face.

It's a bit of a struggle to sit up, since he still can't put weight around his wound, but he manages. He sits up so he can brush her hair back from her face, so the he can see her eyes.

And it seems a little backwards to have a first kiss now, now when she's topless in his bed, when they've sort of spent the night together, when he already trusts her more than anyone else. But he pulls her down against him, and she sighs when their lips brush, a soft press and then a slow exhale against his mouth.

“Oh,” she breathes this sound of _wonder_ of discovery, and then leans in to kiss him harder, to suck his lower lip and press her tongue against his.

She pushes him backwards as she takes more direct control of the kiss, and he falls easily, willingly opening up underneath her.

Skye only pulls back for long enough to work his shirt up, and he helps her tug it over his arms.

“Okay?” She asks breathlessly as she slides it over his left arm.

“Yeah,” he agrees, working his hand around her shoulders to pull her back on top of him. They moan in unison at the feel of her breasts pressing against his chest, and when her lips land against his again, she's almost wild.

He gropes down her body, palming her ass to push her harder against his cock as she kisses him, urging her to begin grinding herself against him. It's almost too much too fast — almost enough to do him in much to soon — and then she pushes herself up, holding a plank position above him, hands just above his shoulders, as she draws a deep breath.

If he thinks for a moment that she's going to stop, though, he's quickly disabused of that notion when she leans in and reattaches her lips to his neck, just beneath his ear.

“I want to make love to you,” she whispers there.

He groans and arches underneath her, tries to bring his body back into contact with her.

“Yes,” he pleads with her. “ _Please_ , Skye.”

Their eyes meet in the dark, and Skye takes a slow breath.

“This is a big deal, right?”

He swallows, suddenly regretting that they haven't actually had this conversation.

“Yes, of course it is.”

“Because I mean —”

“I _love_ you,” he blurts out, the darkness and the heat of the moment making it easier to expose himself like this, easier to say something that feels dangerous.

But the next time he dies, he won't regret this.

“Oh,” she breathes, and he can feel her sort of freeze up.

“This doesn't change anything about how how I feel for you,” he tells her, trying to soften what he suddenly realizes might have been too much, too quick, for her. In his selfish need to not regret, he may have pushed too hard.

“No?”

“Skye, I...”

She leans back down and buries her face in his neck.

“You already loved me.” The words are muffled, almost inaudible.

“Pretty much,” he agrees.

“I feel like I keep losing homes,” she tells him, lips moving against his neck. “Like every time I get comfortable, something happens.”

“You didn't lose this home, though,” he promises her. “Whatever it looked like, I would never —”

“I know.”

He can feel her nod into his neck.

“Whatever you want this to mean, it's okay. It doesn't change things for me. I'm not going anywhere.”

“You promise?”

“Of course. Of course I do.”

When she kisses him again, it's softer, less of the hunger and heat that had been between them before. And then her soft lips pull back to start a lazy trail down his neck and chest.

“Skye,” he sighs her name when her tongue darts out over his nipple, and his hand once again smooths down her back, just looking for skin to touch.

Everything builds so slowly from her easy touches and kisses, her mouth exploratory as she moves down his body, leaving him unbearably aroused again, grinding hopelessly up towards her in search of friction.

She takes her time over his stomach, the sensations of her teeth striking a balance between arousing and ticklish that leaves him writhing underneath her. By the time she tugs his sweats down, Coulson is nearly incoherent, and the wet heat of her mouth closing around his cock is too much to handle.

“Skye, _please_ ,” he grunts, pulling back from her lips. “ _Please_ , I can't...”

The noise she makes at that is entirely too pleased, and then she pulls back in order to slide off her own sweats, leaving her naked on the bed with him. He can't help but touch her naked thighs, the curves of her, the bend of her knee — everything he can reach.

“God, I want to make you come,” he tells her, too honest in his almost lightheaded arousal.

“How?” Her question is breathless, and he thinks she likes it — this sort of dirty talk, this explicit statement of desire and fantasy.

“On my tongue,” he groans, caught up in this image of being between her thighs, of having Skye's body spread out before him.

He can hear her release a slow breath that's half a moan, and see her hand slide between her thighs.

And it's been a long, long time since he's made a woman come like that, but he draws a bit of a blank about how he's going to make it work, now.

It's like she can sense his negative thoughts.

“Let's worry about that next time, Coulson. I really need you inside me, now.”

Which are just he right words to say. His cock throbs at the idea of it, at the statement of it, especially when her hand smooths down his shaft.

“Do you have condoms?”

“Drawer,” he points to the nightstand on his left, and Skye crawls over him to reach it. Which means her breasts hover just above his mouth.

He leans up easily and sucks her nipple, lightly at first and then with harder pressure when she groans.

“Not fair,” he hears in between the sounds of her fumbling in his drawer, and then she pulls her breast away from him and instead sucks on his lower lip as she tears open the wrapper.

Coulson grunts in disappointment when she pulls away, but quiets when her hands wrap around his cock, when he feels the cool sheath of latex as she rolls it down the length of him. It's unexpectedly erotic, Skye putting on the condom, preparing him for her — not something his lovers have generally done for him.

And then she's over him again, straddling his thighs so he can feel the heat of her pressed against his cock.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” he sighs, still and quiet underneath her as she sinks down.

Everything seems to slow down once he's pressed inside of her, tight and hot, and he can't hold back a groan.

She moves over him, finding a slow rhythm that rolls over him like waves, like all he can do is hold on.

He clutches at her thigh at first, fingers curving around soft skin, but she's too liquid, to slippery as she rolls her hips, and he throws his arms over his head to brace against the bed.

For a moment he can feel his left hand again — the pressure as his fingers slip behind the base of the headboard, the edge of the wood against his palm — before reality catches up with him. But he doesn't have a chance to be bothered, not when Skye rolls her hips against him and bears down, drawing him out of his head and into his body.

“Coulson,” she moans his name and pauses her rocking motion, forcing him to open his eyes and look up at her. “Are you with me?”

“Yes,” he promises, “Skye.”

And this time, when her hips again start to roll against him, he manages to move with her, a participant instead of a supplicant, riding the currents with her instead of letting it all wash over him.

In the dim light, he can make out little more than her silhouette, but as he focuses his eyes in the dark, he can see the gooseflesh on her upper arms, the almost-hypnotic way her breasts move, the way her mouth falls open every time he pushes his hips up.

He releases his grasp on the headboard and brings his right hand back to her body, to feel the gooseflesh against his skin, to feel her breasts move against his palm, to feel her parted lips on his fingers.

She comes with his finger in her mouth, pressed against her tongue — her lips tighten around his finger the same way she tightens around his cock, pulsing around him and pulling him with her.

And it means something, he thinks as his orgasm crashes through his body, that they go together. That they're _together_.

Coulson runs his hand up the back of Skye's neck and tugs her into a kiss, pulling her down against him as they alternate between kissing and catching their breaths.

“I love you,” he whispers against her lips, and she doesn't respond in words, but she doesn't tense up, actually kisses him harder. And that's progress, he thinks. Progress for a woman who is terrified of _home_ and of _family_ , who hasn't ever known love as something truly unconditional.

He doesn't mind that he'll be the one to show her this, or that they'll take it slow.

 


End file.
